You might know her from October Baby & Overcomer. She has a new book out called Consider the Lilies. On this episode of the allmomdoes Podcast we welcome Shari Rigby. This conversation on identity, how our identity is shaped, and where we can look to for our true identity is essential for all of us. Are you allowing God to speak to you about your identity? Tune in for a reminder of how the creator of the universe has a plan just for you.
Listen to “allmomdoes Podcast #137 – Shari Rigby – Finding Your True Identity” on Spreaker.
On This Episode:
- Shari Rigby – Follow her online, Facebook, Pinterest
- Consider The Lilies: Get Rooted In Your Destiny By Discovering God’s Plan
- October Baby
- Overcomer
Transcription:
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:00] I’m Julie Lyles Carr. And this is the allmomdoes podcast where each and every week we bring you special guests and episodes that are here to help equip and encourage you in your faith journey, for the kids you’re raising that, that romance that you’re nurturing the career that you have, all the things for exactly right where you live.
So settle in, crank up that volume, grab a cup of coffee. I’m so glad you’re here today. John does podcast. I have actress, writer and you know, she’s just a SheRa of a woman, Shari Rigby. Thank you so much for being with me today.
Shari Rigby: [00:00:42] Thank you Julie, for having me, I’m excited to be here.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:45] So Shari catch my listeners up because you’re someone who came from kind of a fly over state originally, or more rural background went into a difficult teenage hood. But you had some really big dreams, big ideas, things that you thought would lead to Hollywood and Broadway and all the things. So, so catch my listeners up on where you came from and where you been going.
Shari Rigby: [00:01:07] Well, I’m so excited to be here and just to share some of this, my life story, I grew up in Cooperstown, North Dakota, that was less than a thousand people.
Um, the highlight there for me was hanging out in an old movie theater that was located downtown, and it was really one of the greatest forms of escape, I think, growing up. But I would sit there and just I was fascinated with movies and just loved, always wanted to be one of the leading ladies on the, you know, big screen and parents after Cooperstown North Dakota they moved us to Phoenix, Arizona. And that time it was really, um, going from this very little tiny town to this. Concrete jungle is the way that Phoenix was described at that time because of the growth and just really very shocking to the system. Lots of changes. And by the time I was 13, 14 years old, I was already starting to love it, smoking cigarettes and rock and roll music.
And yeah, you know, it was the eighties and all things just. That that’s what life was pretty much focused on. By the time I was gosh, 16, I was pregnant, married in an abusive relationship, 17 walking down the aisle to get my diploma carrying a five week old baby. And at that particular point in my life, I, I didn’t think that I had any ability. I didn’t feel worthy. I was just living pretty, pretty tragic life at that point. And definitely wasn’t looking like the leading lady on a big screen for making movies, right? Yeah. I mean, lots of things that were very challenging. Um, I found myself one night literally on my knees crying out to God. I had been doing drugs with an, my ex husband and I was on my knees in the bathroom, crying out that if there was a God that I needed to know who he was and sure enough, the Lord saw me. And he literally like came in and started to do things in my life. I mean, You know, at that time, I still don’t know that I really knew that it was God.
Right. But looking back, it was, it was very apparent and I received a phone call to start modeling. And the next thing I know, I’m, I’m off doing, you know, modeling shoots, and, and then life turned again to a lot of chaos and went back to college, raising a child on my own, went through another semi abusive relationship and gosh, you know, just constantly a battle of trying to figure out what life was going to do and how it was going to go. And then when I was 25 years old, which was still super young, I ended up reconnecting with my husband, Matt, who I am married to. I’ve been married to now for 23 years. And he asked me to go to church with him. And I sat down in a Calvary chapel, and I remember seeing the pastor come out and he started sharing about the message of grace.
And I just knew in that moment that I needed to know who Jesus was. I needed to know who the savior was that was willing to die for me and really get to know him. And that was really the beginning process of me rededicating my life to Christ and really starting to see how God was starting to do something much different in my life.
And really this pruning process that was beginning. Yeah. And so that’s kind of a backdrop. It was a lot lots of, of information there and tried to give you a whole lot, but, but just really trying to allow people to, to hear my story and to understand that, you know, our plans may look one way, but God has something else going on. And what he does though, through these stories is that he begins to share them with others and that people can see that he really does have a plan for our life.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:04:50] Right. Right. How did you, in the midst of, you know, what a lot of people would think in a young woman’s life, this early, early pregnancy, early marriage, The failure of that marriage, all of those things what’s fascinating to me is that you still seemed to be striving for more.
You were still pursuing some vision and some dreams that you had for your life. How did those things stay in play when there seemed to be so much chaos and devastation going on around you?
Shari Rigby: [00:05:19] Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s a great question, you know? I don’t know that it was really me keeping it alive. I think that really the Lord just, he stepped in and he did have a plan for my life and that, that there was something there that I really couldn’t see, but he knew.
And I think that when the Lord. Gives us something or impresses upon our heart a passion or a dream or a desire or something that he’s given us early on in our life. I think there’s a lingering effect that it’s still there. And as we step into that, even though maybe I wasn’t walking, right, I needed to walk, but I was taking a modeling job.
You know, he was calling me in, I was walking in it and I think as long as we’re opening our hands up and saying yes, and allowing him to do what he’s going to do, he continues to reveal more and more and more. And I think that was really what he was doing in my life. You know, for me, it was keeping my head above water.
It was, for me, it was, you know, still wanting to be something to do something with my life. I had people around me telling me that I was never going to amount to anything that I, you know, might as well just stay in this marriage and live this life that was not great. I’ve already had a child. I mean, there was just a lot of things right against me.
And so for me, I still had a dream deep down inside of me and there was something, you know, and I think at that time of God, it was just still pulling me up and out of that situation and allowing me to continue to seek what it was that he was, he was actually getting ready to call me into. Cause you know, back in that day, I would have never told him anybody that I would have ever been doing what I’m doing right now.
I would have been probably laughing about it going, Oh yeah, he’s never gonna it put me in a huge studio movie and you know, that’s just a dream but he did.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:07:09] Right, right. Yeah. And when did you see those things starting to come to fruition? Because you know, that is not in addition to the difficult upbringing and the teenage hood that you experienced.
Let’s face it, trying to go into anything in entertainment is so challenging. I mean, we’ve heard the stories of people who just have their identities and their moral base and their sense of self decimated when it comes to such a high rejection, high pressure kind of a business. So when did you start seeing those things come to fruition and how did you manage that?
Shari Rigby: [00:07:45] You know, for me after my husband and I got married, Matt and I, we had obviously my son, my oldest son, and then we had our youngest son Levi. And really, gosh, probably I would say within a very short time from after having Levi, I mean, I was just. I mean, my mindset now is like, hey, I’m going to be part of the church. I’m going to Bible study. I’m like, I’m getting my act cleaned up, you know? And yeah, I’m just going to have lots of babies and I’m going to live in this great marriage and I’m going to do all these awesome things and it’s going to be peaceful, you know, the list goes on and on. Right. And then, um, we had started a coffee shop in our church and really the interesting thing with that was when we, we started this coffee shop with another couple for the church. It really was not only for people to come and have conversations and hang out and a great cup of coffee, but it was really a place also for artists to come in and start displaying, whether it was artwork or music or whatever it was, but to bring the creative artistic side back into the church.
And so it was a really cool place. It was called Hebrews and we found ourselves serving there and loving it. But in the midst of that, it was really kind of an interesting time for us because. I had this vision, now that God was getting ready to move, to fill my house full of all these little kiddos and next thing we knew, I was told I couldn’t have any more children. And I had suffered all my life with severe endometriosis. And so, um, one day I was devastated trying to figure out, okay, God, well, what now? What is next? You know, here I am, I’ve been trying to do everything right. You know, isn’t that the way we live, you know, so many of right and um, now this has happened. And so as I was pouring coffee, one morning, I was just. Reeling from this news that I had received, a man came in with his family, sat down at a table. I poured his cup of coffee. And literally like, as I’m pouring his coffee, he looked at me and he said, have you ever thought about doing commercials?
I was like what, like, no, you know, what are you talking about? I mean, that’s like really something that would throw you back on your heels. Right? Cause you’re like, this is crazy. And so he actually invited me to come to an audition that he was holding for a big commercial. And I had no idea, like, you know, I had no idea what I was doing.
I am, but. I ended up stepping out in faith and I walked into a room that was full of probably a hundred people that they call a cattle call. I didn’t even have a headshot with me. All of these people were talking about, you know, their headshots and their agents and they looked perfect and I had no idea what I was doing Julie and I literally stepped in, grabbed a script, walked in through my best at it and walked out. And the next thing I knew, I got the job.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:10:26] Wow.
Shari Rigby: [00:10:29] Yeah. Yeah. And that was really the beginning of something that God was calling me into. And before I knew what I had an agent, and then he was calling me into working for like American airlines at that time and Suzuki and, you know, Mercedes-Benz and I was doing print campaigns and then little feature type films were coming through Arizona at the time. And I was starting to audition and people said, well, you’re never going to get a movie role living in Arizona. They’re going to get those roles, those leading roles to other people. And then I ended up booking those. And then finally coming here, you know?
In 2009 was something so far out of the realm. You know, I was like, God, what are you doing? But it was really cool to see how he continued to open it and the doors and, and were I’ll wrap up this up. Cause you asked me about how do you stay connected? You know, This isn’t an industry. It is extremely difficult to be a part of, and you do really have to lean in and pray and allow God to navigate it.
Because if you don’t, you will get eaten up. And, and, and because what happens is, is even as believers, even as strong as we think we are, we walk into a room or a space or a place and the first thing out of people’s mouths that you’re going to encounter is you you’re not this or you’re not you don’t, you’re not tall enough. You’re not young enough or you’re not blonde enough or you’re not, you’re not, you’re not, you’re not right. And before long, what we realized is we go back into those spaces of believing that we’re not worthy. And so it’s a very challenging space to be in. So I always tell women that come to Hollywood or anyone I work with is you better darn well know that you have spent more time on your knees and on your face, praying to God that he’s called you into this, and he’s preparing you for it than anything else that you’ve ever done in your life, because you will find that you will lose yourself quicker than anything you could have ever imagined. And so you got to lean into the one that created you and know who you are and your identity and who’s you are before you can ever step into this, this field.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:12:32] And, you know, I think that, of course we, we understand that entertainment has that level of rejection. It has that level, that it is such a challenge, but I see women struggling, even in the side hustles, they’re trying to get going, you know, things that they’re wanting to make and sell online, things that they are wanting to do in terms of writing or creating or blogging or whatever the thing is. And so Shari help us because we live in a culture that tells us all the time that if we will just dream big enough pray hard enough plan, well, enough hustle, hard enough then we’ll make it. And yet what I hear you describing is you did have these nudges in your heart for something that you wanted to do, but it was a that’s encountered at a coffee shop actually, and started the ball rolling. So how do we not, how do we preserve a dream or honor aheading, without making an idol of it without it becoming the thing that we believe will give us great value in our identity or keep us from having value in our identity, if we don’t achieve whatever that thing is.
Shari Rigby: [00:13:35] You know, the thing is, is that I think women today have, I think people in general honestly, have been sold a narrative that we can be all things as long as we. You know, pray it out to a universe, manifest it, work hard enough we can do all these things. And I think they’ve been sold a false narrative is really in my own opinion because of what I have gone through in my life. And I know first of all, the first and foremost thing is when I work with women specifically, I always tell them, you know, you’re not praying it out to a universe. You’re praying to the creator of the universe and. He is not only created the universe, but he’s created you. And so with each and every part of your being, every part of your fiber, you have to then really start to understand what that looks for. You need to sit down and lean and to the creator in a way that you never could have imagined before.
And you need to really. Pray and seek his will on this. That being said, you know, we, we have to go back in then and dig into the word of God. We have to be able to lean into him and say, you know, are you the one that’s calling me into this? Or am I looking at something in my social media platform? Or am I listening to the world, tell me that I can do something that I was never created to do.
And so that’s where we always start. You know, it’s, it’s really about praying. It’s really about sitting down with the creator of the universe. It’s really about understanding who he is and the promises that he has over your life. And maybe there are dreams and passions that he’s given you without a doubt. Yeah. But, but how do they actually incorporate and work into. What his will is for your life rather than the desires of our hearts. And then, you know, we always start to look at, is it your dream or is it his will, is it your desire or his will, is he your number one passion or is there something else that your passion that you’re asking him to bless?
Like there’s all of these things that we have to walk through. And so I know. Without a doubt that the Lord does have a plan for each and every one of our lives. If we can believe in salvation where he talks about it throughout scripture, how can we not with the beginning of creation, the book of revelation, we see that he has a plan and he has a plan specifically.
He even talks over and over again about the plan for our lives. So we have to believe he has a plan for our life as well, but we are the ones that have to sit down and really spend time with God to seek it out and know that it’s his will versus our desire before we move forward in it. And we need to stop the narrative of kicking doors open, or trying to put our feet into doors that, you know, maybe God’s going to open. Maybe he’s not. Or maybe we, you know, I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to be done. I’ve seen it in my own life. And I think we just have to go back and stop looking to the world for the narrative of what it’s going to look like in our lives. And we need to start digging back into our Bibles and really tapping into the word of God and using that as our roadmap to get to where he has us going for the plan for our life.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:16:48] We’ll get right back to the interview in just a moment. You may have noticed at the top of the show or at the end of the show, I’m always encouraging you to go check out something it’s called allmomdoes. And I just want to make sure that you’re taking advantage of this amazing resource for the journey you’re on when it comes to your kids, your marriage, your spiritual life, your job, your relationships, allmomdoes is this incredible community of women. Just like you. Walking through so many of the same things and you can go on allmomdoes.com. You’ll find all kinds of fantastic blog posts, great information, but also check out allmomdoes on the socials because there’s such an incredible community that has developed there.
Women encouraging women, women sharing their lives. So be sure and check it out. I know you hear it at the top of the end of the show, but it’s so important. I had to just stop right here and mention again to you. Go to allmomdoes.com and allmo does on Instagram and Facebook. You’re going to find friendship, inspiration, and much more
Shari, speak to me about and speak to those listeners who, you know, something like a teenage pregnancy. We sometimes, I almost, I want to say almost elevate it to the place of saying this will be the thing that defines you. This will be the thing that will make or break if you have any success in your life, if you go on to have true love in your life, all of those things. We sometimes isolate decisions that are made in younger years and give them a status that we say is going to be predictive of the rest of someone’s life.
Now I do understand and appreciate the cautionary nature and the wisdom of saying, Hey, be thoughtful about what you’re getting into in those young years, because it does set a course, but how would you speak to women there who either have walked through this themselves or have a young woman in their world that they’re trying to help walk it through? Or they may have a teenager of their own who is experiencing and facing something like this or a decision that really is going to impact a lot of that, that teenager’s life. How do you look at the experience of having your child so early now, now that you’re a few years down the road, now that you can look back and see, how would you frame that for us?
Shari Rigby: [00:19:01] Yeah. Well, I would say to any young woman or to any woman in general that the experience, if it’s a child or whatever it might be, don’t that that’s the world wanting to tell you that’s what’s going to define you. There’s only one that defines you and that’s that’s God period. And so that’s going back to the earlier question.
You know, you have to be able to understand and identify yourself first and foremost, with the one that created you and stop allowing the world to define you because that’s when we become, you know, even talking about the book a little bit, you know, one of the things I always talk with women about is what’s making you toil or spin, what’s setting you into confusion versus clarity.
And it’s really because it really boils down to, we allow the world to set titles for us or to tell us that we have certain purposes right. In our lives. That are attached to titles or things. And then when those things don’t pan out or play out, or we don’t actually attain them, then all of a sudden we somehow some way have either allowed those things to define us, or we’ve allowed this narrative to be sold to us to say, we’ve lost our purpose. We’ve lost this. We don’t know who we are. We’re now confused. We’re toiling, we’re spending, we’re looking to somebody else’s lives. We’re comparing ourselves to someone else and we have to stop that. I want to encourage each and every woman that’s listening right now.
Yeah. No matter what season of life you’re in that God knew it before it was ever going to happen. And for me, Specifically, there is nothing that would define me in a way that could stop me now where I’m at as a woman, whether good or bad to do what God’s called me to do. And so we have to stop labeling ourselves. In that pregnancy for me, my son, my oldest son. He’s really what elevated my life. He gave more meaning to my life than anything else. And he’s really the one that helped to set a course. And he was meant to be, no matter how hard or how difficult it was, he was just another amazing piece of the part of the plan of my life that God had set before me.
And. We have to change the lens of our eye, to see those things as unique, to see them as a gift, to see them as how do we move forward and allow those things to be part of our story, to influence others and stop allowing things that we think that the world says will define us as the end all to be all that it will stop us in our tracks because that’s what the world wants us to do and we can’t let that happen.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:21:34] Right. Such great wisdom. I know a lot of my listeners are going to know you from your films like October Baby and Overcomer. And you’re also an author and this new book that you’ve been putting together and working on. I want to hear more about this. It’s called Consider the Lilies. It has a lot to say about how we exactly what you’ve just been speaking on, how we need to really identify. By where our identity is coming from. How to look out for the pitfalls along the way, about how the world sometimes tells us we should live. But I love this. You were telling me pre pre roll that this was not the book you set out to write that seems very on brand for you. Sherry,
Tell me about the Genesis of this particular book and this topic, especially given that it was not exactly where you thought you were gonna be heading out initially.
Shari Rigby: [00:22:22] Yeah. Well, you know, it’s so funny, Julie, because I think we, if we all really sat down and thought about how we have plans, right. It even talks about that.
The plans of man are many in our hearts. Right. Um, You know, this particular book, it was funny. I started writing another book that I hope it’s some point will still be released that I’ll still get to share it with the world. Cause I think it’s a really great message. The Lord had been working in my life and he had taken me back through the gospels and kept me in the gospels for two years.
And so that was what I was penning for quite some time. And so. After I did the movie Overcomer, my literary agent came back to me and said, Hey, we have some different publishers that have come in and asked about, you know, identity. And a lot of people have known my story from my past, you know, experience of being a teenage mom and just some of the things I had gone through.
And so they were asking about stories and whether or not I was writing anything. And so I was, you’re very excited to share this book that I’ve been writing for two years. Look at you guys. You’ve been writing a book for two years. Here we go. And then I went into a meeting with my lit agent and, um, a couple of other people.
And then there was a woman that was sitting there that had worked in the publishing industry for some really big names for a very long time. And we sat there, you know, all in this meeting for quite some time and talking, and basically at a particular point in time, her and I met again and we started discussing just the projects in general.
And she said, you know, Wait, what you need to write about is what’s on your heart. And in those discussions, what apparently all of these people heard was my love for women. My purpose is to serve God and to serve his women. And the women in my world was a ministry that I had started back here when I came to Hollywood and they heard all of the background of why.
And, and so, um, and I had told them. You know her and, and this group of people that here, here’s what I do in my own walk. This is how I’ve been taking this journey for the last 11 years being in Hollywood. This is what the women in my world have walked through also. And she said, that’s the book you need to write.
And I was like, Hm. So you want me to take what I’ve been doing for the last 11 years of my life and journaling and pinning and working through with women and put it into a book in a couple of months? Yeah, sure.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:24:49] No problem.
Shari Rigby: [00:24:50] Okay. And so that’s what I did. And only by the grace of God did consider the lilies come to fruition in that way, because. The, what you see in this book is literally the things that I do on a daily basis that I put into practice daily in
my own life that I encourage other women to do. And that a lot of the things that are in there is what women and I with the women in my world walked through together for several years.
And. It’s now in the, in this book. And so that’s really how Consider the Lilies came about.
That’s awesome. And I love that it was a bit of a detour, a bit of actually listening to the heartbeat because you’re right. I think there are those things that we say we want to do we aspire to do, but if we were really to listen to the things we’re really saying that we’re passionate about, we might discover something completely different underneath there.
That really is the heading that God. Wants to put us on, you know, Shari, one of the things that you’re very valued for in the faith community and in your communication to women is your vulnerability, your honesty about where you’ve been, the things you’re struggling with, the things you’re working through.
And I think a lot of us aspire to have that kind of vulnerability, but a lot of us have been burned a lot of times by. Our church folk, when we’ve been that kind of vulnerable, how did you learn to be able to open up to that level? Because again, that ties very much to me into this message of Consider the Lilies, this idea that we have this front piece that we often put on and the things we don’t necessarily want people to know, or the way we present it in a way that still seems a little more favorable.
How do we get to the place where we can be courageous enough to really stand truly in who we are and in the work that God has done in our life, that’s been redemptive, you know, I had to come a long way in my faith walk to understand that my story and my testimony was valuable. And why was it valuable.
There’s many stories out there that are much more significant, horrific, whatever it might look like that should be shared with the world. Yeah. But really the way that I came to understand the power of my testimony was because there was this that died for it. He died for my story. He died for me as a woman that he was going to die for every sin that I had encountered in my life and give me a new life.
And that new life was the opportunity to share. With all the people that I encounter that I’ve been redeemed, that I have nothing to be ashamed of, that he says, when I take the ashes and trade it for garland, that’s exactly what he does. And he died for my story. And so it took me a long time in a very valuable point that you made in the question is that people do go through things in their churches and they are. They are hurt and they are scared to be as transparent because people may use it against them or space something. And all I can say to that is that they have to be reminded that their first and foremost identity is in Christ.
That he’s the one that shed the blood for them. That he is the only one technically, they can judge them and has already died for their sins. And it says over an overlap, the redeem say they’re redeemed in the book of Revelation. It says by the testimonies and the blood of the lamb, they will come. We have to be able to see that no matter what
comes from human judgment that we have to be able to share our stories of mercy and grace and growth in our savior in order to move forward because he died for that story. And those stories inevitably will help somebody else. Walk through what they’re going through and that’s how I encourage each and every person to navigate and walk.
We have to be able to do that. We have a savior that died for us, right. We have a sinful nature and nothing is perfect, but he is. And so it’s covered. And so I just encourage people every time I speak, no matter where I’m at, who I’m speaking to your testimony is valuable. Why is it valuable? He died for you.
And secondly, there is somebody out there that needs to hear exactly what you have to say, because they’re going through the same thing. And that’s the power of the blood of the lamb. And by the testimony and people will come to know Jesus because that’s who he is. He takes ordinary, does the extraordinary, and he removes.
The nasty smoke that I used to smoke and cigarettes and everything from my body and gave me garlands so that I could shine bright and make a difference in his kingdom.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:29:30] I love that. Well Shari you are such a treasure. Your story is such good medicine for all of our souls. And I just can’t thank you enough for all of the wisdom and heart, the way that you speak to today’s women and use your platform and your gifting for acting to bring stories to people that have such hope. So thank you so much, Shari, for being with me today. It’s just been amazing to get, to have this really important conversation with you.
Shari Rigby: [00:29:56] Thank you Julie.
Julie Lyles Carr: [00:29:58] Be sure and check out the show notes that our content coordinator, Rebecca puts together each and every week. A big shout out to Donna. She is our producer and helps make sure that the audio quality and all the things are the way they need to be so that you can get the episodes. I would love to ask you a big favor. Would you do this for me? Would you go and subscribe and like the podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, it really does help get the word out. And if you leave us a five star rating and a really sweet review, you might just get to hear your review read online here on the podcast. Yeah. I would love to connect with you on all places. Social. You can find me Julie Lyles Carr. I particularly love Instagram. So come see me over there. And while you’re on the web, be sure and check out allmomdoes.com, which is our blog and website. It’s an incredible resource for you. And of course, allmomdoes on the socials. And we also have the allmomdoes podcast discussion group where I check in and chat with you throughout the week about the episode. So would love to see you there as well. I’ll see you next time right here on the allmomdoes podcast.
